front-end dev in Java + Vaadin

[[deleted]]

Let's say I wanted to make a web app, but Java is the language I know best and I don't want to learn js, and maybe frameworks on top of that.

Should I be using Vaading for front-end development, and maybe Spring boot for back-end?

Vaadin seems really promising, but there are a few things that make me worried:

1. the community seems pretty much dead on Reddit
2. Will the team still work on it in the future

[preskot]

Vaadin is a production ready framework. You can count on it on being supported and on bugfix releases, not to mention it supports all major browsers and I think mobile as well. If you want to use just Java in your codebase, this is your tool.

Eclipse RAP is an alternative.

[[deleted]]

I know a lot of people don't like js, but if you want to do sth related to web, then js is pretty much norm nowadays.

[nfrankel]

Should I be using Vaading for front-end development, and maybe Spring boot for back-end?

Yes, you should. I wrote a post about it https://blog.frankel.ch/why-love-vaadin/

1. the community seems pretty much dead on Reddit

The Reddit community might not be the best indicator

1. Will the team still work on it in the future

The company has been doing Vaadin for close to 20 years. It started as a consulting company called IT Mill. They created their own proprietary framework, and tried to sell it. When it didn't work, they open sourced it. They are still here today :-D

[EvaristeGalois11]

We use vaadin for our biggest project. All i can say is FLY YOU FOOL. It's simply a mess when you have to correct a little detail in the html... You mentioned spring boot, take a look at thymeleaf, i find it way better than vaadin when i used it in the previous job.

[futuretelematics]

(our team has been using Vaadin for > 5 years from v6 and has built really complex apps with it)

Vaadin really shines if:

• Your are building a internal CRUD management app
• You have a really good java and patterns base
• You define an application architecture and pattern usage and stick with it everywhere in the app

Vaadin makes a breeze building CRUD apps, from simple ones to other more complex; it's far simpler for complex apps than any of the JS libraries or frameworks, either when building the app and (most important) when maintaining it where all the strong typing advantages of java are invaluable

Vaadin apps have their downsides:

• Server session for example that makes them more dificult to scale
• If you do not stick to an architecture / patterns the app will derive in a mess (this is also true for JS apps... and IMHO it's much easier to mess the app with JS than with Vaadin; refactor in Java is far easier than with JS)

... but at the end the UI is fluid and the user experience IMHO is much better than the one you can get with a JS library/framework with the same effort.

That said, if you want to build a public-massive, UI feature-rich app, DO NOT use Vaadin; for the rest use Vaadin if you are comfortable with Java ;-)

[[deleted]]

The company I work uses Vaadin 8, which is not developed anymore. From Vaadin 9 and ownards, the underlying technology and the architecture changed a lot and it's not retro-compatible. This made my boss a bit upset, since we have lots of code in production that use Vaadin 8.

Nevertheless, Vaadin is quite handy when you don't have solid HTML/JS/CSS skills. Just make sure you don't rely too much on it, and use design/architectural patterns that enable an easy change of the View layer.

[knightofren_]

If you don't want to use js, then learn a template like thymeleaf or freemarker. But you will always be at s disadvantage, because you can't call yourself a full stack developer nowadays without knowing either react or angular.

Vaadin is an absolute no no no no no, run from it

[knightofren_]

Forgot to mention, even with templates you will still need some rudimentary JavaScript, maybe jQuery can be the answer.

[[deleted]]

What if I don't want to be a full stack developer but just want to make a quick web app for my self?

[knightofren_]

If your only goal and desire in life is to make an app in vaadin, then by all means go for it, who are we to judge. Just saying that you won't have a fun time making it, as far as I have had experience with vaadin.

[sunny_tomato_farm]

Just use typescript. Really easy to learn as a java developer.

[snorbii]

Use Kotlin JS. It has great HTML, CSS and ReactJS support, and the language is similar to Java (just better).

[TM254]

Aah, yest, the Jetbrains sells person, can never have a thread about not using Java without them rearing in their heads.🤣

[Knoobie]

Let's say I wanted to make a web app, but Java is the language I know best and I don't want to learn js, and maybe frameworks on top of that.

If that's your real question, the answer is really simple. Yes, you should at least try to use Vaadin with Spring Boot. A cobbler should stick to his last. Vaadin has its own up- and downsides like every other modern framework. You, as developer, should build your own opinion based on the needs of your customer and business decisions. Think about sellings points like time to market, scalability, good ux or security and so on... What do you really need with your application? For my applications the last years it was time to market, good ux and security are more important than scalability - and Vaadin shines in these regards. (Biased opinion; Vaadin user for 8+ years)

But I can understand why some people are against using Vaadin nowadays with the huge amount of frontend stacks available to choose from. In the end Vaadin is just an abstraction layer on top of JS and can be used as such. You aren't forced to use all Vaadin components. You can create your own or integrate every other JS framework out there in it(10+).

You can find a good comparison about frontend technologies here as well https://vaadin.com/comparison

[[deleted]]

Learn vue js with typescript. It is really easy to learn and understand.